


13.) Stuck In The Middle With You

by BasicBathsheba



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fiona vs Simon vs Simon, M/M, Simon the cat - Freeform, Spell Mishap, summer hols, that tricky ol Johnny cash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 20:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20297215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba
Summary: Simon Snow didn't mean to do it. Baz Pitch needs to vomit. Fiona causes a crash on the A1 and Johnny Cash strikes again. Everything changed when the anxiety attacked.





	13.) Stuck In The Middle With You

**Author's Note:**

> Hello doves! This is chapter 13 of the Carry On Round Robin project. My trope was "spell mishap."
> 
> If you haven't read the previous 12 chapters, I encourage you to do so! Each participating author got assigned a random trope, and we're each creating a chapter having to build off of what our peers have written previously. There is no planning or larger structure to this fic, and I think it's going smashingly.
> 
> Big thanks to @CarryonSimonCarryonBaz for beta reading this and helping out with organizing the Round Robin. 
> 
> Title is from Stealer's Wheel -- Stuck In The Middle With You.

**BAZ**

Every time Simon Snow kisses me I want to vomit.

Every shy smile, every bashful look, each peck to the cheek or brave dart forward or sleepy, nighttime kiss makes my stomach feel like it’s going to boil over with a combination of blissful happiness and queasy terror.

Because I knew this was coming. One way or another, this was going to end in flames.

And I have this horrible, disgusting habit of always being right.

It’s been a nightmare since the dance. My mobile has been ringing off the hook with calls and texts and messages from everyone I’ve ever known. News of Snow and my’s “date” travelled quickly. Watford is like leaky pipe; nothing that happens here stays here. My father knew about the date before Snow and I had even made it back up to Mummers with our stolen food. 

He was probably having a confusion-induced heart attack right around the time Snow and I were snogging and I was leaving this plane of existence on a happiness-fueled cloud.

_ “What’s the plan, Basilton? _ ” my father had asked three times in a crackling voice mail. His voice was eager and tight, full of absolute confidence that his son was in the midst of some evil plot, and not caught in the clutches of ill-advised love. _ “Now isn’t the best time for a move, but let us know what you’re doing, and I’ll see what I can do_.”

That was expected, all things considered. So were Fiona’s sixteen texts.

_ “What the fuck is going on.” _

_ “Are you under a spell?” _

_ “Did the golden shit bag force you into that?” _

_ “What game are you playing, B?” _

Fiona’s messages left a tighter lump in my throat than Father’s. But the one that truly scared me — the one I deleted immediately, without hesitation, with shaking hands — was the one from my stepmother.

_ “Hullo! How are you doing, darling? Just wanted to check in and see if you need anything. Looking forward to having you home. Mordelia won’t stop talking about the summer, I’m afraid she has plans for you. Anyway, give me a ring if you need anything. And… please know, dove, that if you ever need to talk or want to tell us anything, we’ll listen. Or just you and I can chat. No one else. Think it over, dove.” _

I knew I was going to have to face up to all of these messages when I went home for the summer. I knew that I was going to have to account for my actions, and come up with some explanation, and do it all while I’m separated from Snow. 

(I’ve been dreading that.) (The being separated.) (He could have an entire summer to change his mind, or have his will warped by the Mage, or just decide he doesn’t like me, and I won’t be able to talk to him at _ all _ about it.) 

I’ll have to face this mess we’ve made entirely by myself.

And I was okay with that. I don’t want to be alone, but I’m used to it. I’ll do what I must, and I was prepared for that. I was prepared for everything to go up in flames, for everything to be difficult and terrible. Every moment of happiness has been stolen, borrowed against time, against destiny, against what I knew was going to happen. I was prepared. I’ve been prepared since I gave in the night of the dance. Since I decided to let him in.

But I wasn’t prepared for Simon to be Simon and make an impossible situation even worse.

  


**SIMON**

That Johnny Cash is a real son of a bitch.

I really didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t even _ do _ anything, exactly. We were just in class and I was bored, because it’s the end of the term and all the professors have given up for the year, and I was itchy.

I always feel itchy around the end of the school year. Summer hols are pretty much my least favourite season, and the closer it gets and the warmer the weather is, the more I start feeling like I’m going to vibrate out of my skin.

Over the years I’ve learnt tricks to deal with it. Not thinking about it, for starters. Not letting Penny go in on how barbaric it is that she can’t talk to me. When I was younger, I used to craft these elaborate plans and arguments for the Mage, to try to get him to let me stay at Watford over the summer or go home with him. I don’t do that anymore.

And anyway, the Mage has stopped being around at the end of term, so I couldn’t even if I tried.

This year it was worse though. It was all the normal summer feelings, and on top of that there’s _ Baz_.

It hit me a few days after the dance. That come summer, I wouldn’t be able to talk to him. I wouldn’t be able to see him. We’d be separated, and who knows what could happen during that time? He’d be alone with his family all summer, and what if they convinced him to hate me?

I feel like half of this stupid relationship thing we’re doing is me just constantly convincing Baz to trust me. What could happen if I’m not around to remind him why he should?

(Also, not being able to kiss him. I like doing that, and it really helps to shut him up when he starts arguing about all this.)

So there was a lot in my brain, and it was swirling around and around and I could feel my magic building as I got more and more anxious about it. And I was muttering that song — that Johnny Cash song, the one Baz used to make the barrier spell, and I was trying to calm myself down with it. I don’t really know the words though, which bugs Penny and Baz, but at this point I’ve made up my own, and they’re locked in. I can’t learn the real ones if I tried.

“_Because you're blind, I walk the slide,_” I muttered, tapping my fingers against the table where Penny, Baz, and I were sitting. They were talking about their summer reading lists, and I was tuning them out.

“Snow, could you please stop butchering classic music?” Baz said, glancing sideways at me with a smirk. I scowled at him, but didn’t stop. He didn’t mean it, he was just doing his thing where he pushes me away. He _ always _ pushes me away, and then I have to fight to break down his walls, over and over, and Merlin knew what he’d put me through when we got back to Watford, and—

_ “_**_You've got a way to keep me by your side,_**_” _ I kept going under my breath, taking a deep breath to try to control the magic. But instead of settling the squirming inside my stomach, it was like something just _ released _. Like a spring loaded latch or shotgun, something just burst out of me, taking the pent up magic and anxiety and worry and itchiness with it.

And then there was smoke. Of course. There’s always smoke.

When the smoke cleared, I jumped to my feet, looking around the classroom, terrified that I’d gone off and blasted someone, but everything was fine. No one was hurt, but everyone was pushing back from desks and running to the door to try to get away from the smoke.

“Oh, Simon,” Penny said, covering her mouth and nose with the sleeve of her jumper. “What was that?”

“What did you _ do_?” Baz snarled, coughing. Tears were streaming out of his eyes as he and Penny stared at me. I started backing away, the panic climbing higher and higher as I tried to figure out what had happened. Baz could see me panicking, clearly, and he sighed.

“Come on, you imbecile, don’t just stand there looking—”

I didn’t hear what he said next, because suddenly my brain just erupted with a white hot pain, sending lances of electric fire through my veins, causing me to crumple to the floor, bending in on myself trying to make the pain stop.

“Simon?” Penny shrieked. “Simon, are you okay? Baz? Baz? What’s going on? Guys? Guys this isn’t funny!”

I blinked up at her from the floor, not understanding, trying to see through the pain.

Baz was collapsed on the other side of the classroom, folded in on himself, grabbing his head and shaking.

“Baz?” I said, gasping through the pain and trying to push myself to my feet. “Baz?”

White spots blurred my vision and I stumbled back to the floor, but Baz didn’t notice, he just kept holding his head in his hands.

In the background I could hear Penny screaming; could tell the other students had come back in, that people were shouting, but none of it mattered, because I just had to get to Baz. I had to make sure he was alright.

I started crawling along the floor, trying to push my shaking body closer, crawling inch by inch until I could just barely reach out and touch his hand, and—

The pain stopped.

My vision cleared. The fire in my veins disappeared, the shaking receded like the pain had never even existed. On the floor next to me, Baz straightened up as well, suddenly fine.

“Baz?” I said again, shoving myself into a sitting position and grabbing at him, reaching for him, needing to make sure he was okay. “Baz? What—I don’t—are you—”

He pushed himself up, breathing heavily through his nose, and looked at me. His eyes were like fucking snake slits. Cold and grey and sending chills down my spine.

“I’m going to _ kill _ you.”

**BAZ**

An entire school of mages, and not a single one can lift Snow’s DIY super glue fuck up.

Possibelf nearly looked like she was going to cry when we got dragged to her office.

“It’s the end of school,” she’d said, her voice very small. “It… Simon, it was your _ last class of the year_.”

“I know,” he said, looking down at his feet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

She’d sighed, closed her eyes, and shook her head.

“No,” she said. “You never mean to.”

She must have tried a dozen spells on us, then pulled in other teachers to try a dozen more each, and eventually even let _ Bunce _ have a go, but nothing worked.

If Simon and I get more than five feet apart, we get struck by blinding pain. The only thing that can stop it is if we touch.

Part of me is seriously contemplating braving the pain and running the fuck away, just to make Snow suffer.

“I swear I didn’t mean to do this. It was a total accident,” he whispers to me now as we sit and let the Minotaur take a last crack at us. It’s late; well past dark. We’ve been at this for hours, and Possibelf has sent at least five birds to the Mage, and heard no reply. 

(I’m amazed, frankly. I thought he’d come running to save Snow, but apparently he has better things to do.)

“I know,” I whisper back. I want to tear him limb from limb, but also I love him, the conflict of the two is making me angry. “You really can’t undo this?”

“I’ve been trying,” he answers, glum. He looks on the verge of crying, his face puffy and red and scrunched up. Desolate. “Nothing.”

“Okay boys,” Possibelf says, bustling in, “I’m afraid we’re not getting anywhere.”

“Really?” I drawl. “You think?”

She ignores me and keeps speaking.

“Let’s break for the night. I haven’t been able to get in contact with the Mage, but if I had to guess, this will dissolve with time. Magic breaks down naturally, as you know, so I think it’s best if we simply wait it out.”

“But it’s summer term,” I say. “We don’t exactly have time to wait it out.”

Beside me, Simon’s eyes are getting huge.

“Do we have to stay here? At Watford? To wait?”

My stomach flips over at the eagerness in his voice. Delaying my summer hols sounds like an absolute nightmare to me, but for Simon…. Well, I suppose it’s a dream come true, isn’t it?

“No,” Possibelf says, shaking her head. “No, I’m afraid we can’t. The school closes, dear.” She sounds apologetic, like she, too, knows what’s racing through Simon’s mind right now. “The Mage will have a solution, I’m sure, but if we can’t get in touch with him before then, we’ll have to send you two home.”

“I’m unsure if it’s escaped your notice, but we aren’t able to go anywhere separately,” I snarl, panic starting to rise. “And I’m not going to some Normal care home.”

“No one expected you to, Mr. Pitch. I’ve just spoken to your father—” fear strikes through me “—and he’s aware that Mr. Snow may need to stay with your family for the time being.”

“You want me to go live with the _ Pitches _?” Simon squeaks, his voice rising. “Like, alone?”

“No.” I shake my head. “No. Absolutely not. I don’t care if I have to stab him and cart his corpse around forever, no.” Simon makes a noise from beside me, but I ignore him. “Do something else. Anything else. You’ve barely even tried.”

“Mr. Pitch—”

“There has to be _ something_.” My panic is rising. Simon can’t come home with me. He can’t come back with my family. I can’t explain everything with him there, can’t lie to my family like I’ll have to do. And anyway…

They’ll try to kill him.

**SIMON**

So, I kind of get the vibe that Baz doesn’t want me to meet his family.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I _ want _ to. I really, really don’t want to go to Pitch Manor. They’re going to kill me the second they have me alone, and the Mage is going to lose his mind. It’s everything the Old Families have been wanting for ages. Get me alone, chain me up, peel me like a grape and try to get me to divulge the Mage’s secrets…

“It could be a good thing,” Penny says. She’s been lurking in Possibelf’s office with us, refusing to leave. I’m kind of glad she’s here now.

“What?” I hiss. I glance at Baz, who is on the other side of the room, (Well, sort of. We can’t move that far away from each other so he’s more like a few desks away.)

“I mean, what’s worse, creepy Pitches or state care?” Penny asks. “At least this way I bet they’ll have good food, and I can talk to you. I’ll come visit you!”

“Penny, come on,” I whisper, my voice all panicked. “They want to kill me! And clearly Baz doesn’t want me to go home with him.”

I glance at him again. He’s still arguing with Possibelf, trying to talk her out of this. He seems more freaked than I am. If there weren’t a load of other things going on, I have to admit I’d probably be hurt by that. 

Why doesn’t he want me with him over the summer? Would it be that terrible to spend time together? I mean, sure, his family is evil, but it could be nice to, you know, be together.

“Simon,” Penny says, her voice low. Kind of suspicious. “Is this about the Pitches, or the idea that Baz doesn’t want to spend time with you?”

“The Pitches!” I hiss. Sort of. I kind of yell it, loud enough that Baz looks over, his lips tight, his eyebrows pulled together. He turns away from Possibelf, folds his arms, and glares at me.

“We’ll deal with this in the morning. Come on, Snow. I still have to pack.”

He doesn’t even wait for me to respond, just turns and starts striding out of the room. I can feel it the second he gets too far, the headache starting to build, and I dash along behind him, trying to keep up with his strides and stay close enough as he storms across the lawn and into Mummers. I swear the bastard takes the steps six at a time.

“Could you just,” I pant, “stop for one moment?”

“No,” he snarls, slamming into our room and across to his bed, where the fucking cat is sitting. Without even looking at me he just scoops the cat up into his arms and slams into the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” I shout through the door, gritting my teeth as I move closer and closer. The pain is starting up already, and I know he can feel it. I take a few steps across the room until I’m right outside of the bathroom door, and the pain eases up.

“I’m not going to just sit out here while you and that stupid cat hide in the bathroom!” I shout at him. “Just, come out here, please? So we can talk about this?”

Silence.

I slam on the door with my fist.

“Baz, come on! I’m sorry, okay? I’m really sorry.”

Silence.

I turn around and slide down the door until I’m sitting on the ground, outside the bathroom door, waiting for Baz and his cat to come out.

This is probably a new low. This is probably weirder than the invisibility stalking.

At least this time I don’t have a choice. And at least the en suite is small enough that I can stay outside. I don’t want to even think about what Baz would do if my spell required us to be in the bathroom together.

“Look, I don’t like this either,” I tell him. Even though he’s not answering, I know he can hear me. I’d bet anything he’s just sitting on the side of the tub right now, listening to me while he glares at the door. “But it’s not the worst, you know? And I know you don’t want me to go home with you. I’m not huge on it either. But we’ll work it out, I promise. The spell will wear off overnight, or the Mage will let us stay here or something.” I exhale a big puffing breath and knock my head back into the door. “Just, trust me. We won’t have to go home to your family if you don’t want.”

**BAZ**

Fiona comes to get us at 9 sharp.

The Mage is still MIA. Not answering any of his birds. Simon wanted to stay at Watford until he could be reached, but Fiona refused.

“If you think we’re going to sit around and wait for you and your lot to do anything else to Baz, you’re cracked,” she’d snarled at him. “Now get your shit and get in the car.”

Snow had his chin jutted out and for a moment I thought he was going to just straight up rugby tackle Fiona, but instead he relented and went to get his one rucksack of things.

Wellbelove and Bunce were hovering around us as we left, Wellbelove whispering things and Bunce assuring Snow she would visit. Dev and Niall watched from afar, unwilling to wade in.

It felt like everything we’ve been through this year — all our progress, our friendship, the small fading of the battle lines — disappeared.

We’ve all been children. Idiots. Playing at friendship and happiness like the war isn’t coming, like nothing matters, like the real world isn’t going to catch up to us soon. Snow and I are enemies. It doesn’t matter if we’ve danced and laughed and kissed. We were born to kill each other. And at Watford we can pretend that isn’t true, can push it away.

But surrounded by my family? Reality is about to catch up.

And I shudder to think what will happen when the Mage comes back and finds out where his heir is.

Fiona is in rare form today as well, glowering at Snow as we load up the MG, never letting him out of her sight. I know it’s because she’s nervous and scared. Scared about me, worried that I’m okay, nervous about taking Snow home with us. I’m bringing the enemy right into the heart of our safe space, and she and I know the Mage will be shortly behind.

This is how Fiona acts when she’s anxious: like an asshole.

She takes a long drag of her cigarette and blows it directly into Simon’s face while making eye contact.

“What’s the matter, Golden Boy?” she asks when he coughs. “I thought smoke was your thing.”

Snow looks ready to pop, but luckily Fiona is distracted when I climb into the front seat with Simon in my lap.

(Simon the cat, not Simon the human.)

(I’m still horrendously embarrassed about the whole ‘thinking Snow was a cat’ thing, and I’ve decided to fix the situation by taunting Snow with said cat.) (He gets pissed every time I call it Simon.)

(I do it a lot, just to wind him up.)

“What the fuck is that?” she asks, pointing at the ginger cat that is happily curled up in my lap.

“It’s a worseger.”

“I’m not having a cat in my car.”

I raise an eyebrow and glance to the back, where Simon is sitting, his knees nearly tucked up to his chin in the cramped space. Fiona catches me looking and scowls.

“Cats, Chosen Ones, Aleister fucking Crowley, Baz, what’s with you and the strays?”

But she still puts her sunglasses on and throws the car into reverse, and soon we’re speeding down the gravel drive of Watford, out onto the road, and on our way home.

Home. 

Simon is coming to my _ home_.

Someone is going to end up dead.

Merlin, it will probably be me.

**SIMON**

So, I wouldn’t say that Fiona scares me. In the same way that the Humdrum doesn’t scare me, even though I have a healthy respect for the possibility that it might kill me someday. I think Fiona could _ definitely _ kill me, and I think she’s just kind of barely holding herself back from it.

But at the very least, she definitely hates me.

Baz isn’t speaking — just sitting in the front seat brooding — and I’m not talking, because I’m kind of freaking out a bit, so this should just be a silent, awkward drive. But Fiona _ won’t stop talking_. It’s like any time there’s more than two minutes of silence she thinks of a new, really shitty thing to say.

“We’ve set up a room for you already, Snow,” she says before we even get to the main road. “Our best guest accommodations. You don’t mind cold and damp, right? Oh, and dark? We don’t have windows in the dungeon, you see.”

If I ever wondered where Baz got his shitty personality from, now I know.

She hits pretty much everything. My hair. The Mage. Weird taunts about killing me and locking me in the dungeon. Baz just stares out the window, absentmindedly petting his stupid cat like he’s some villain in a cheesy movie, and doesn’t once tell her to stop or even act like he’s listening.

Which is fine. It’s just, when she doesn’t get a reaction out of me, she starts in on him.

“You’re top of your class, and you seriously let yourself be hit by a rogue sticking spell? C’mon, Baz, you’re smarter than that,” she mutters, drumming on the steering wheel. Baz doesn’t answer.

“You know, we’ve all indulged this little feud thing you have going with the Chosen One, mostly because it’s funny, but you’re almost sixteen. It’s time to cut this small beans shit out. And by the way, why the fuck didn’t you answer any of my texts? Do you have any idea the weird rumours that are flying around out there?”

She glances at me in the rear view mirror and then lowers her voice a bit.

“You better have a good fucking explanation for why half the school caught you dancing with Boy Wonder back there. I told your dad you’d put a love spell on him, made him a thrall.”

Baz makes a tiny snorting sound but otherwise doesn’t answer, and I can feel my temper starting to rise. I’m _ right here _.

“Seriously, boyo, what the fuck is going on? You ghosted on everyone. And I have to hear from Malcolm’s fucking _ brother _ that apparently you and Dev have been hanging out with the Mage’s little trio?”

Baz still stays silent. I’ve never gone off in a car before, but that might be about to happen.

“I just don’t know what’s happening to you, it’s like you’re a different person.”

Now I snort. What kind of messed up family gets pissy when their kid gets new friends? I don’t really know how families work, but this doesn’t seem like it’s how this is supposed to go.

No wonder Baz has been so hesitant about all this. No wonder I feel like I have to push him sometimes.

“Your mum always said you’d be a trouble maker, you know,” Fiona is saying, and I can see Baz actually flinch. “We said we should have left you out for the faeries, dumped you in the Thames, you’re made of trouble—”

“Great fucking snakes, could you stop?” I shout. Suddenly Fiona slams on the breaks, and the car comes to a screeching stop, right in the middle of the road. The cars behind us start honking, swerving wildly to avoid us, whizzing by as Fiona turns around slowly to stare at me, completely unconcerned that we were almost just _ killed _.

“What did you say?” she hisses.

“I said stop!” I shout back, my heart racing. “Just give it a rest! This wasn’t Baz’s fault, it was mine, I was the one who fucked up the spell, and he’s already got to put up with me, he doesn’t need you blethering on at him and being so shitty!” Baz isn’t looking at me, but his shoulders are tense, rigid, like he’s holding his breath. “And there’s no need to bring his mum into it, Merlin. I don’t want to be here any more than you want me to be here, but if you’re going to shout, just shout at me and leave him out of it because he didn’t do anything, okay?”

I slump back against my seat, all the energy done, and run my hand through my hair as I let out a long breath. “Okay?”

Fiona stares at me for so long that I think she’s become a statue, and then finally she moves, turning around to face the front and putting her hands back on the steering wheel.

“Just for that, I’m not going to kill you yet, Chosen One.”

I frown at her, but her hands loosen a bit from the death clench she’s had them in, and she starts the car back up, much to my relief, and keeps driving.

“I think Daphne is making roast beef for dinner. You like roast beef, kid?” she asks, conversationally, like we weren’t just screaming at each other. I guess this is her weird way of making a truce.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Mhm. Good.”

She lites another cigarette and inhales deeply and then blows the smoke out — this time not in my face — and I see Baz turn around slightly in his seat to look at me for the first time since we got in the car. There’s a small, confused smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

I smile back.

Maybe we can survive this. Maybe.

**BAZ**

I take it back. We’re both going to die.


End file.
